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Share Paper 2738

Focus Constructions in Lamnso'
Safieh Moghaddam
71-80 (complete paper or proceedings contents)

Abstract

Lamnso', a language with a fairly rigid SVO order, shows asymmetries in the way verb arguments are focused. Subjects are focused post-verbally (in-situ) while non-subjects are focused both pre-verbally (ex-situ) and post-verbally (in-situ). I propose that there are two domains for encoding focus in Lamnso': post-verbal focusing, which will be argued to be an instance of in-situ focus (inside vP), and pre-verbal focusing, which will be argued to be a high focus position (in the CP periphery). The former is used to encode contrastive focus while the latter is used to mark new information focus.

Published in

Selected Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference on African Linguistics: African Languages in Contact
edited by Bruce Connell and Nicholas Rolle
Table of contents
Printed edition: $280.00